This application is a request for funding to support the travel expenses for young scientists to attend and participate in the annual International Meeting on the Molecular Biology of Hepatitis B Viruses, scheduled for October 4 - 8, 2015 at the Hotel Dolce Bad Nauheim (near Frankfurt), Germany. This meeting, which has been held consecutively since 1985, is the only forum that gathers the international community of researchers that focus on the hepatitis B virus (HBV) and the satellite hepatitis delta virus (HDV). Approximately a quarter of the world's population has been infected by HBV. Unfortunately, despite the availability of prophylactic HBV vaccines, new infections continue to arise due to the underutilization of the vaccine and difficulties in interrupting perinatal viral transmission from the infected mothers. Moreover, for the approximately 350 million people already chronically infected with HBV (approximately 15 million of whom are co-infected with HDV), the vaccine is of no therapeutic value, and the current approved medications are costly but less effective, leaving chronic hepatitis B patients under an elevated risk of liver cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and other severe clinical sequelae. As a result, between 0.5 and 1 million people die of HBV/HDV every year worldwide. It is therefore imperative that basic research on HBV continues, and latest progress in the field is discussed and disseminated in a timely manner, thus the annual HBV meeting represents the venue at which this can occur. The 2015 meeting will uphold and enhance the traditional format and exchange with interaction and dialogue presented in 9 oral scientific sessions, 2 poster sessions as well as less structured networking time. A special focus of this meeting will be on virus-host interactions, with a particular emphasis on cell biology, antiviral immunity, and new therapeutic targets/means. This will be facilitated by two keynote addresses, and a satellite meeting on the topic Prevention and Treatment of hepatitis B - medical challenges and new tools. As in the past, great effort has been made to minimize the cost of the meeting. Furthermore, the Hepatitis B Foundation has made a strong commitment to support this meeting since 2005, in terms of providing a permanent home for organizing the meeting and making its staff available for organizing the meeting and publicizing it, especially to universities with large numbers of underrepresented minorities. In order to allow the participation of junior and minority investigators, support from the NIH to help defray the meeting costs of junior scientists is requested.